It’s the Cocktail Party.
The latter portion of my schedule now reads:
Thursday, October 25
Boston College at Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA); 7:30 PMSaturday, October 27
Florida at Georgia (Jacksonville, FL); 3:30 PMSunday, October 28
UCF at Southern Miss (Hattiesburg, MS); 8:00 PMSaturday, November 3
Wisconsin at Ohio State (Columbus, OH); TBATuesday, November 6
Central Michigan at Western Michigan (Kalamazoo, MI); 7:30 PMWednesday, November 7
Ohio at Akron (Akron, OH); 7:30 PMThursday, November 8
Louisville at West Virginia (Morgantown, WV); 7:30 PMSaturday, November 10
Auburn at Georgia (Athens, GA); TBA
OR
Arkansas At Tennessee (Knoxville, TN); TBATuesday, November 13
Toledo at Ball State (Muncie, IN); 7:30 PM
OR
Thursday, November 15
North Texas at Arkansas State (Jonesboro, AR); 7:00 PMSaturday, November 17
Ohio State at Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI); 12:00 PM
OR
LSU at Ole Miss (Oxford, MS); TBAThursday, November 22
USC at Arizona State (Tempe, AZ); 8:00 PMSaturday, November 24
Notre Dame at Stanford (Palo Alto, CA); TBASaturday, December 1
UCLA at USC (Los Angeles, CA); 4:30 PM
The Toledo/Ball State game would happen if I choose Ohio State/Michigan, and the North Texas/Arkansas game would happen if I choose the Grove, aka LSU/Ole Miss.
So the plan is to now leave Blacksburg at about 2 or 3 AM on Friday morning (giving me enough time to sober up, hopefully?) and get to Columbia, SC where I’ll overnight. And then a straight shot to Jacksonville where, if my luck holds true, I will be adopted by a house boat ownin’ sorority keen on deepening their Asian-American relations as part of an admirable commitment to Poly-Sci, which isn’t a useless major after all, and God Bless America and all the states therein!
Also, as an aside:
Spotted the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile on Virginia Tech’s campus today. After talking to one of the young women who drives America’s Favorite Phallic BBQ Confection, I’ve concluded that there really are some sweet jobs in this country. Apparently they “just drive around, promoting hot dogs.”
Seeing the Wienermobile was, for me, on par with seeing the 1960s Batmobile at Penn State’s Homecoming parade. I suspect that things like the Weinermobile and the Batmobile occupy a mental and spiritual “mythic space” in the three pounds of gray matter in my skull in much the same way that Athena and the many manifestations of Zeus occupied a similar space, in, say, a citizen of Thebes not too long after Cadmus decided to follow a cow there – which is to say: the Theban and I have never really believed we would walk through a hayfield one day only to find Ares rutting with a maiden in a ditch or that we’d park next to the Wienermobile, but to no one’s surprise, there’s the personification of bloodlust squirting god juice into some poor future mother and there’s that 20-ft. long orange hot dog mounted on a mustard yellow bun. It feels like an occultation: the narrowing of real life into something suspiciously divine and certainly not-of-this-world.
It also makes me think of our very human fascination with anything absurd, ridiculous or extreme. That’s why we celebrate pygmies and Andre the Giant. And that’s why I’m here on Thursday, where 66,233 people have constructed, in just ten or fifteen years, the very real myth of their own invincibility when the Hokies play at home. I expect the absurd, the ridiculous and the extreme to make an appearance.
82 Sluggo Win 
“Saturday, October 27
Florida at Georgia (Jacksonville, FL); 3:30 PM”
Sorry for being thick, but if its Florida at Georgia, why would you be heading to Florida? Wouldn’t you be in Athens?
Shouldn’t you detour through Atlanta for VaTech vs. GaTech on Nov. 1? Still gives you a full day to get to C’bus.
Caroline, the game is held at the “neutral” ground of Jacksonville every year.
Nico, I’m leaving Hattiesburg and going south instead: Nawlins, then Baton Rouge to visit Tiger Stadium. Then Memphis. THEN Columbus.
Dear Jon,
Don’t ever come to a Gator game again.
Your friend,
Steve “Mergz”
PS Safe travels
Look at it this way…
Actually, there’s no other way to look at it. At least I wasn’t in Tempe for the Fiesta Bowl.
Jon, what sacrifices must be made to your gods to get you in Athens for the Auburn game? Dawgs are Tu-and-0.
Virgins seem like appropriate sacrifices?
I did note that Georgia is unbeatable when I watch them live. I am not above blatant bribery, so the above “question” is really more like a declarative sentence?
If you can find em in Athens, you can have em.
Jon,
I thought it was “vestal virgins”?
(. . . .”vestal” if they’re poor, “vested” if they’re loaded?)